Rome (Marked Men, #3)(43)

I was also surprised at what a natural Asa was behind the bar. The guy was a born bullshitter, and by the end of the night, from even just a handful of regulars and jaded barflies, he made more in tips than I had ever seen Brite or anyone else take home. He was an all-right bartender, but his gift of gab and plethora of charm made up for it in spades. I even noticed an increase in the younger, female clientele in the few days he had taken up his spot back there. I figured maybe I could talk Brite into keeping him around when he got back.

On Saturday night I left as early as I could and put Asa in charge of shutting the place down. Jet had pulled me aside a few days after mentioning that we were going to be working at the bar together in order to give me a little of Asa’s background. He warned me that essentially he was a good guy, but not to let all that Southern charm fool me. Jet said to watch my back and not to trust Asa as far as I could throw him. I always heeded warnings when they came from people I trusted, but so far Asa had been nothing but an awesome partner in crime and I missed spending time with Cora. Leaving him in charge for a night was a risk I was willing to take.

When I got to the house she was asleep on the couch. Jet and Ayden were gone for the night, so I scooped her up and took her in her room to put her to bed. She woke up when I was pulling her swirly hot-pink sundress off over her head. She blinked those wicked-colored eyes at me and tried to focus.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

She yawned and stretched her arms up over her head. The one with all the brightly inked flowers on it curled around my neck on the way down.

“I’m exhausted.”

I let her tug me down so I could kiss her on her waiting mouth.

“Long day at work?”

She shook her head and ran her fingers over the short hair on the back of my head.

“No. Just sleepy all day. I was going to stay awake and wait up for you but I couldn’t keep my eyes open.”

I kissed her again and she put her hands under the hem of my T-shirt.

“You don’t have to wait up for me. I was just going to put you in bed and crawl in next to you.”

“If we’re going to be in bed together, neither one of us needs to be sleeping.”

Man, this girl was just something else, and it only took about two seconds to get both of us naked and down to business. I fell asleep pretty quickly afterward and as usual she was draped across the top of me from shoulder to hip. In reality it had only been a very short time since we had invaded each other’s life, but something about it just felt like this was the way it was supposed to be.

At least it felt that way until sometime in the early morning.

There was sand in my face and I couldn’t breathe. I was hot, hotter than normal, in all my gear and for some reason I couldn’t see past the red haze covering my eyes. My ears were ringing in my head and from somewhere really far away I could hear voices screaming. I wanted to lift my hand up to wipe my face, to pull my helmet off to see if that would make it easier to breathe.

I couldn’t get my arm to work. I couldn’t get most of my body to cooperate.

I managed to turn my head to the side, just enough so that the blood covering my face trailed down my nose and out of my eyes, barely letting me get a look around.

I wasn’t in the Hummer anymore.

I was on my back staring up at the sky and a cloud of dust and dirt was sticking to all the blood and sweat coating any of my skin that wasn’t covered by my gear.

I didn’t have my gun in my hands anymore, and I couldn’t see any of the other guys who had rolled out on the op with me. There had been six of us in total in the Hummer.

I wanted to call out, wanted to scream because my shoulder was on fire and I wasn’t sure what was going on under my helmet, but the river of blood covering my face showed no sign of slowing down anytime soon and I couldn’t see that great. I just didn’t know if our location was secure. Didn’t know if it was an IED or enemy fire. If any of the other guys had made it out, I wasn’t going to be the one who gave our location away to the insurgents, even if it meant I had to bleed to death on enemy soil.

I don’t know how long I lay there. I went in and out of consciousness more times than I could count, and finally, what felt like days later I opened my eyes to a medic pulling my gear off and trying to move me without breaking more of my body. I think they told me it was an IED. I think they tried to tell me I was going to have to get airlifted home. I’m pretty sure they said brain injury and possible loss of motion in my shoulder, but all I really heard was “sole survivor of the blast.”

It didn’t matter that my ears were ringing. It didn’t matter that I was probably minutes from bleeding out. It didn’t matter that it was war and things like IEDs and dead soldiers were an everyday part of life. I started screaming and screaming and screaming until I felt like everything inside me was empty and hollow. I think they doped me up to get me to calm down and minimize the damage, because when I woke up I was in Germany and they were doing surgery on my arm and trying to sew my face back together.

Everyone thought I was so lucky. I got to go home and recover. I got to live.

Every night after that I woke up either screaming or choking on blood and tears that couldn’t fall.

Bolting upright on the bed, I forgot all about the fact that I was holding on to Cora. I had cold sweat pouring off my arms and chest, and I felt like I was suffocating on blood and sand even though the desert was a lifetime ago. My lungs billowed in and out, my chest heaved up and down, and I knew I had to get away.